Retro Television Review: Johnny Garage 1.1 “Pilot”

Posted on November 5, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! This Thursday, I will be reviewing the unaired pilot for Johnny Garage, which aired in 1983 on CBS. The show can be found on YouTube!

Welcome to New York.

Episode 1.1 “Pilot”

(Dir by Bill Persky, originally aired on April 13th, 1983)

Johnny “Garage” Antonizzio (Ron Carey) owns a garage in Queens. According to his employee Frankie (Val Bisoglio), everyone in Queens knows Johnny Garage. Johnny Garage has family all over the borough. But will Johnny Garage have the $4,000 necessary to pay the rent to rich Harriet Garfield (Carlin Glynn)? Johnny needs to make the money quickly, but that won’t be easy. Mechanic Mike (Timothy Van Patten) is more interested in flirting than working, and Johnny made the mistake of loaning out the mail truck that the local postman, perhaps foolishly, left at his gas station. “No problem!” announces the Johnny Garage theme song, which plays over the beginning and end credits.

This pilot is a little bit interesting because it appears that it was actually filmed on location in Queens. Almost the entire episode takes place outside as Johnny and Frankie watch for Harriet’s limo and hopefully some rich customers. I have no idea if the show would have held onto that concept if the pilot had been turned into a series. Filming on location is expensive, and most sitcoms in the 80s took place on one interior set for that reason. Of course, the pilot wasn’t turned into a series, and watching Johnny Garage, it’s easy to see why. Even the pilot seemed to be struggling to come up with any interesting stories that could take place at a gas station. The cast is likable, even if one gets the feeling that the show’s producers overestimated the appeal that gruff New York mechanics would have for the rest of the country.

According to IMDb, this show was inspired by an actual gas station in Queens, and I imagine that’s the root of the pilot’s problems. The location was a place that obviously meant a lot to the show’s creators. (One of those creators, by the way, was Sonny Grosso, the former cop whose work partially inspired The French Connection.) To most viewers, though, the location would just be another gas station. This pilot is the ultimate example of how no one is more fascinated by New York than the people who live there.

Film Review: Blood Red (1989, directed by Peter Masterson)

Posted on June 11, 2019 by Jedadiah Leland

The time is the 1890s. The place is California. Sicilian immigrant Sebastian Collogero (Giancarlo Giannini) has just been sworn in as an American citizen and owns his own vineyard. When Irish immigrant William Bradford Berrigan (Dennis Hopper) demands that Sebastian give up his land so Berrigan run a railroad through it, Sebastian refuses. Berrigan hires a group of thugs led by Andrews (Burt Young) to make Sebastian see the error of his ways. When Sebastian ends up dead, his wayward son, Marco (Eric Roberts), takes up arms and seeks revenge.

Have you ever wondered what would have happened if the famously self-indulgent directors Michael Cimino and Francis Ford Coppola teamed up to make a movie about the American Dream? The end result would probably be something like Blood Red. Like Cimino’s The Deer Hunter and Heaven’s Gate, Blood Red begins with a lengthy celebration (in this case, in honor of Sebastian’s naturalization ceremony) that doesn’t have much to do with the rest of the film but which is included just to make sure we know that what we’re about to see is more than just a mere genre piece. Like many of Coppola’s films, Blood Red features a tight-knit family, flowing wine, and a score composed by Carmine Coppola. The only difference between our hypothetical Cimino/Coppola collaboration and Blood Red is that the Cimino/Coppola film would probably be longer and more interesting than Blood Red. Blood Red is only 80 minutes long and directed by Peter Masterson, who seems lost. There’s a potentially interesting story here about two different immigrants fighting to determine the future of America but it gets lost in all of the shots of Eric Roberts flexing his muscles.

For an actor known for his demented energy, Eric Roberts is surprisingly dull as the lead but Blood Red is a film that even manages to make veteran scenery chewers like Dennis Hopper and Burt Young seem boring. (Hopper’s bizarre attempt at an Irish brogue does occasionally liven things up.) The cast is full of familiar faces like Michael Madsen, Aldo Ray, Marc Lawrence, and Elias Koteas but none of them get to do much. Of course, the most familiar face of all belongs to Eric’s sister, Julia. Julia Roberts made her film debut playing Marco’s sister, Maria. (Because the film sat on the shelf for three years after production was completed, Blood Red wasn’t released until after Julia has subsequently appeared in Mystic Pizza and Satisfaction.) She gets three lines and less than five minutes of screen time but she does get to briefly show off the smile that would later make her famous. Today, of course, that smile is the only reason anyone remembers Blood Red.

A Movie A Day #339: Continental Divide (1981, directed by Michael Apted)

Posted on December 14, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Ernie Souchak (John Belushi) is a reporter in Chicago. He specializes in stories about municipal corruption and Mafia power plays. Needless to say, living in Chicago, that keeps him busy. Literally everyone in the city knows him. Even the two muggers who try to steal his wallet recognize him and share inside information about which street gang is about to make a big move. From a modern day vantage point, it seems strange to see everyone so excited about meeting a newspaper columnist but this movie was made in 1981, long before an army of bloggers put journalists like Ernie Souchak out of business.

Souchak’s gotten in trouble with the mob so his editor (Allen Garfield) sends him out of Chicago for his own protection. Chain-smoking city boy Ernie Souchak finds himself in the Rocky Mountains, assigned to track down and get a story on Dr. Nell Porter (Blair Brown). Dr. Porter has spent the last few years researching and protecting bald eagles. She doesn’t like reporters but Souchak wins her over. Despite being two very different people, Nell and Souchak fall in love. But can a city boy and a country girl stay together, especially when there are people in Chicago who want Souchak dead?

A strange movie, Continental Divide was meant to be an updated version of the romantic comedies that Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn used to make and Blair Brown was even made up to look like a young Hepburn. It was one of the first films to be produced by Steven Spielberg, who has always been better at picking material as a director than a producer. It was directed by Michael Apted, a great documentarian who has never shown himself to have much affinity for comedy. It was written by Lawrence Kasdan, who specialized in homages to classic film genres and who, after this movie, made it a point to direct the majority of his scripts. And it starred John Belushi, in his only romantic film lead.

Belushi, of course, is the main reason why anyone would want to see this movie. It was his second-to-last movie, coming out between the popular success of The Blues Brothers and the infamous failure of Neighbors. Continental Divide gives Belushi a chance to play a character, instead of just a version of his own wild persona. The legend has always been that Continental Divide showed the actor that Belushi could have become if not for his tragic death. The truth is that Belushi frequently looks uncomfortable and it is often evident that he is having to reign back his natural instincts. Belushi’s best scenes are the ones where Souchak is walking around Chicago and hustling everyone that he meets. In those scenes, he’s confident and in control and it’s easy to get swept up in his life. His scenes with Blair Brown, where he has to be sincere and serious, are far more awkward. Belushi has enough good scenes in Continental Divide to make you regret the performances that we never got but, at the same time, it’s evident that he still had room to grow as an actor.

If Belushi hadn’t died and had instead gone on to make several more movies (and hopefully beat his drug addiction at the same time), Continental Divide would probably be forgotten. Instead, it now exists as a hint of what could have been.

The TSL’s Grindhouse: Night Game (dir by Peter Masterson)

Posted on April 2, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Apparently, today is the opening day of the 2017 baseball season. The only reason that I know that is because of my sister Erin. I don’t know much about baseball, to be honest. I know that my city’s team is the Texas Rangers and they were once owned by George W. Bush. I know that Houston has a team called the Astros. But, really, the main thing that I know about baseball is that my sister absolutely loves it.

So, when Erin asked me to review a baseball movie today, how could I say no? I mean, I may know next to nothing about baseball but I certainly know something about movies!

For that reason, I’m going to take a few minutes to tell you about a 1989 film called Night Game. Night Game is many things. It’s a movies that features a lot of baseball, even though it’s not really a sports film per se. It’s a police procedural, though the film itself suggests that the police often don’t have the slightest idea what they’re actually doing. It’s a serial killer film, though its killer is never quite as loquacious as we’ve come to expect in this age of Hannibal Lecter and Dexter Morgan. At times, it’s a slasher film, though it’s never particularly graphic. Mostly, Night Game is a Texas film.

Directed by native Texan Peter Masterson, Night Game is like the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre in that it is one of those rare films that not only takes place in Texas but was actually filmed on location. To be exact, Night Game was filmed in both Galveston and Houston. The entire film has a friendly and quirky Texas feel to it. Masterson may not have been a great visual director (If not for some language and nudity, Night Game could pass for a TV movie) but Night Game is a movie where the plot is less important than capturing the little details of a time. a location, and the people who lived there. Though Night Game is 28 years old, it’s portrait of my home state still seemed very contemporary to me. I guess Texas hasn’t really changed that much over the past few decades.

As for the film’s plot, someone is murdering young women in Galveston and leaving their bodies on the boardwalk. Obviously, that’s not going to be good for attracting Spring Break revelers. The film doesn’t make any effort to keep the murderer’s identity a secret. We see his face fairly early on. We also see that he has a hook for a hand. Eventually, we do learn the murderer’s motives. They’re pretty silly but then again, individual motives rarely make sense to anyone other than the guy with the hook for a hand.

Detective Mike Seaver (Roy Scheider) has been assigned to solve the case. One thing that I really liked about Night Game was that Mike was pretty much just a normal guy with a job to do. He wasn’t self-destructive. He wasn’t always drunk. He wasn’t suicidal. He wasn’t always lighting a cigarette and staring at the world through bloodshot eyes while the lighting reflected off of his artful stubble. He was just a detective trying to do his job and get home on time. After sitting through countless films about self-destructive cops and criminal profilers, the normalcy of Mike was a nice change of pace.

Mike does have a backstory. He used to play baseball and he still loves the game. He goes to every Astros home game in Houston. He’s in love with Roxy (Karen Young), who works at the stadium. Things are only slightly complicated by the fact that Mike had a previous relationship with Roxy’s mother (Carlin Glynn). Don’t worry, Mike’s not secretly Roxy’s father or anything like that. It’s not that type of movie.

Anyway, Mike is such a fan of baseball that he realizes something. The killer only strikes on nights that the Astros win a game. And he only strikes if a certain pitcher was throwing the ball. The obvious solution would be to shoot the pitcher in the arm and end his athletic career. However, Mike’s too nice a guy to do that. Instead, he just tries to track down the killer…

And, as I said, Night Game actually isn’t a bad little movie. Make no mistake, it’s a very slight movie. At no point are you going to say, “I’m going to remember that scene for the rest of my life!” That said, it’s a surprisingly good-natured film and Roy Scheider’s performance is likable and unexpectedly warm. With all that in mind, Night Game is an entertaining and (mildly) bloody valentine to my home state.

Plus, it’s a baseball movie! I don’t know much about baseball but, if my sister loves it, it has to be a good thing!

Back to School #35: Sixteen Candles (dir by John Hughes)

Posted on September 3, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 80s are often considered to be the golden age of teen films and that’s largely due to the work of one man, John Hughes. A former advertising copywriter and a contributor to National Lampoon, Hughes went on to direct and write some of the most influential films of all time. By deftly mixing comedy with themes of alienation, rebellion, and youthful disillusionment, Hughes changed the way that teenagers were portrayed onscreen and his influence is still felt today, in everything from Juno to Superbad to Easy A to … well, just about any other recent film starring Michael Cera.

(Okay, I know Michael Cera was not in Easy A but it really seems like he should have been…)

Hughes made his directorial debut in 1984 with Sixteen Candles, a comedy about love, birthdays, and weddings set in an upper class suburb of Chicago. (I have to admit that, much like with My Tutor, one reason that I like this film is because I like seeing where everyone lives.) As the film opens, Samantha Baker (Molly Ringwald) is not having a particularly good time. For one thing, everyone is so wrapped up in her older sister’s wedding that they’ve forgotten about Sam’s sixteenth birthday. Her house is full of wacky grandparents (and one foreign exchange student named Long Duk Dong). At school, Sam is in the unenviable position of being neither popular enough nor unpopular enough to actually be noticed by anyone. Instead, she’s just there. She has a crush on Jake Ryan (Michael Schoeffling) but is convinced that Jake doesn’t even know that she’s alive. (Of course, she’s wrong.) She’s also being pursued by a character who is occasionally referred to as being “Farmer Ted” but is listed in the end credits as simply being “The Geek.” (I’m going to refer to him as “The Geek” because Farmer Ted makes him sound like he should be killing people in a SyFy original movie.) As played by Anthony Michael Hall, The Geek isn’t your typical high movie nerd. Instead, he’s the outspoken and confident king of the nerds and he’s proud of it. The Geek is madly pursuing Sam and has made a bet with his friends (including John Cusack) that he’ll not only have sex with her but he’ll prove it by bringing them her panties. (BAD GEEK! — but fortunately, Anthony Michael Hall gives such an energetic and likable performance that you can forgive him.)

There are parts of Sixteen Candles that have not aged well. And, by that, I’m mostly referring to the character of Long Duk Dong, who is so well-played by Gedde Watanabe that it’s tempting to ignore just how racist the portrayal of his character really is. As well, I know that a lot of my more erudite friends would probably only briefly look away from their copy of Thomas Piketty’s Capital In The 21st Century, just long enough to pronounce that Sixteen Candles is essentially a film about “first world problems.”

Well, maybe it is. But I don’t care. I like it. John Hughes’s script is full of classic lines and funny characters, Anthony Michael Hall is likable as the Geek, and, as played by Michael Schoeffling, Jake Ryan is the epitome of the perfect guy. If your heart doesn’t melt a little when he says that he’s looking for true love, it can only be because you don’t have a heart. And finally, Sam remains a character that we can all relate to. As played by Molly Ringwald, she’s the perfect sullen everygirl.

Of course, an undeniable part of the charm of Sixteen Candles comes from the fact that it really is a film that could not be made today. Sixteen Candles may take place in an entirely different world from films like The Pom Pom Girls and Suburbia, but it’s still just as much of a time capsule.

First off, there’s about a thousand apps out there that will make sure that you never forget anyone’s birthday. If the film was made today, Sam’s parents would have checked their e-mail and found a message from Facebook telling them that “Samantha Baker has a birthday this week!” They could have just written “Happy birthday to a wonderful daughter!” on her wall and half of Sam’s problems would have been solved.

Secondly, it’s doubtful that, if the film was made today, the Geek would be able to get away with just showing everyone’s Sam’s panties. Instead, they would have demanded nude pics, which would have then been posted on the internet for the entire world to see. And let’s be honest: “Can I send my friends naked pics of you?” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as “Can I borrow your underpants for ten minutes?”